The Effect of Mental Conflicts on the Domestic Tourists’ Intention to Revisit in Comparison with International Tourists (case study: Tehran)

Abstract

In the current super competitive environment, tourism marketers should focus on branding and the factors that make up the brand of a tourism destination. Since attention and mental conflicts, choice and intention to visit are the essential elements in the tourism brand's structure, any change in these elements can be important in the demand for re-visitation. The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of sustained tourism mental conflicts into domestic tourists intention of revisiting in comparison with international tourists with and without the effect of intermediary variables (brand awareness, brand image, brand perceived quality and brand loyalty). The present research is applied in terms of its purpose and is considered as descriptive-survey research in terms of research methodology. The statistical population is the international and domestic tourists of Tehran. The Statistical analyses were performed using SPSS and AMOS software. The bootstrap method was used to test the path analysis of hypothesis. The findings of the research indicate that the sustained mental involvement of the tourists on the intention of visiting domestic tourists is influenced by the effect of intermediate variables and the sustained mental involvement of the tourists has a positive and significant effect on the intention of international tourists’ re-visitation with effect and without intermediary variables. In fact, revisiting Tehran as a tourism destination requires considering brand awareness, brand image, destination brand quality, loyalty to the destination brand and sustainable tourism engagement. These factors are interconnected and their effect on domestic tourists is different from foreign tourists. Therefore, marketing and branding strategies for domestic tourists should be different from branding for international tourists.

Keywords

• tourist’s mental conflict
• tourism brand
• domestic tourism
• international tourism
• visit intention